Right of Access to a Lawyer in Criminal Proceedings in Romania
Report on the Implementation of Directive 2012/13/EU on the Right of Access to a Lawyer in Criminal Proceedings in Romania
On 16 November 2016, the deadline passed for the transposition into national law of the Directive 2013/48/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings and in European Arrest Warrant proceedings and on the right to have a third party informed upon deprivation of liberty and to communicate with third persons and with consular authorities while deprived of liberty [hereafter the Directive on the Right of Access to a Lawyer]. By this date, all Member States were required to bring into force all laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive. States should have transmitted the text of any legal measures to the European Commission, but many have not yet done so. Even when States have purported to transpose the Directive into law, this does not mean they have ensured actual implementation in practice.
This research aims to assess whether States have effectively transposed and implemented the Directive. It monitors implementation and analyses whether the rights in the Directives have become a proper part of national practices.
The research has been carried out in Bulgaria, Cyrus, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
The adoption of EU Directives on criminal justice is a tremendously significant development, setting new norms for the rights of suspects and defendants across the EU. We hope, with the production of this research, to help support the EU Commission and the individual Member States to better understand the state of implementation in practice, and to highlight good practices and challenges in implementation.